The Muslim Brotherhood – History and Front Groups

The Muslim Brotherhood – History and Front Groups

The Resistance to the Trump presidency in 2017 was almost deafening. Lost in the shuffle of Social Justice Warrior movements and general chaos is a group with a goal of global dominance and that has infiltrated many levels of the U.S., both in business and government spheres. That organization is the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood began in Egypt in 1928. Its original foundation was a Sunni revivalist movement. The Muslim Brotherhood's chief goal and purpose is the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate which would be governed by Shari'ah (Islamic law).

The Muslim Brotherhood has also been known as Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, Gamaat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, Ikhwan, Muslim Brethren, Muslim Brothers, and Society of Muslim Brothers.

The Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) was founded as an Islamic revivalist movement in the Egyptian town of Isma’iliyaa in March 1928 by school teacher Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949).2 The Brotherhood’s goal has been to promote the implementation of Shari’ah (Islamic law derived from the Quran and the Sunnah).

Early in its history, the Brotherhood focused on education and charity. It soon became heavily involved in politics and remains a major player on the Egyptian political scene, despite the fact that it is an illegal organization. The movement has grown exponentially, from only 800 members in 1936, to over 2 million in 1948, to its current position as a pervasive international Sunni Islamist movement, with covert and overt branches in over 70 countries.

The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to restore the historical Caliphate and then expand its authority over the entire world, dismantling all non-Islamic governments. The Brotherhood aims to accomplish this through a combination of warfare – both violent and political. The Muslim Brotherhood has provided the ideological model for almost all modern Sunni Islamic terrorist groups.

Those who have read even the smallest amount about the Muslim Brotherhood are likely aware of their role in the Holy Land Foundation case.

Briefly, after a mistrial in 2007, the Holy Land Foundation case came to a close in November of 2008 when five former leaders were found guilty in the second trial by a U.S. Federal court for facilitating the transfer of more than $12 million to Hamas. At the time, the Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity organization in the country.

The defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012, but their petition was rejected. That same year, former Attorney General Eric Holder continued to obstruct Congressional oversight committees by refusing to produce documents from the Holy Land Foundation trial that implicated other Muslim groups and individuals who were operating in the United States.

Holder refused to prosecute these groups, of which included major Muslim groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).

HLF had already been classified as a “specially designated terrorist group” by the United States Treasury Department seven years earlier in 2001. Hamas had been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997 by the U.S. Department of State

According to testimony presented at trial by the FBI “[I]n the early 1990’s, Hamas’ parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, planned to establish a network of organizations in the U.S. to spread a militant Islamist message and raise money for Hamas. The HLF became the chief fundraising arm for the Palestine Committee in the U.S. created by the Muslim Brotherhood to support Hamas.”

It is worth noting that the government in the United Kingdom produced a report wherein the Muslim Brotherhood was given the designation of a terrorist organization in 2015. Former President Obama lashed out at the report claiming the group was “non-violent.”

The Obama White House issued a statement which read, in part, “"political repression of nonviolent Islamist groups has historically contributed to the radicalization of the minority of their members who would consider violence. The de-legitimization of non-violent political groups does not promote stability, and instead advances the very outcomes that such measures are intended to prevent."

The Holy Land Foundation, CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, and Hamas are just some of the more visible front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood. There are many, many more.